Quick update

Greetings from England, where I’ve been more or less stuck in bed since I arrived with the most horrid attack of a virus that’s rendered me full of pain and coughs. Accordingly I haven’t felt like doing anything, including keeping this blog up to date. And so, as much as I’m not in the mood for doing it, I really do need to get some stuff on paper, metaphorically speaking. The Karaite project is going nowhere. The community aren’t interested in working with me, and having played with the idea of a photographic project about the places and people around them but that doesn’t include them (which works nicely in my head, and that if done could serve as a wake-up call in the sense that what I really wanted to convey was to see the world without the Lithuanian Karaite in it) to the point of actually making another trip to Trakai to explore how I might go about this, I don’t feel particularly inspired to pursue it. I do however believe that there are things about the Lithuanian Karaite that are truly extraordinary (they are after all both Jewish and Muslim), and will keep them on the backburner. What I really need to do is physically meet the woman who makes the decisions, but as I think I’ve already mentioned, she’s away working in Western Europe. So, that leaves me with Mindaugas Rutkauskas, who unlike the Lithuanian Karaite is wildly enthusiastic about what I’m doing and very relaxed about me working with him. A quick technical point I should make is that I was right originally to do the project in black and white. Having shot him again, it was clear that the light in Lithuania in winter is simply too bad for colour (I’d actually read something to that affect written by a Lithuanian photographer a few days before I made the decision), and thinking about the documentary photography I like… most of it is black and white. Maybe it’s something to do with my age? Who cares? I love the magic simplicity of the black and white image. At this moment in time, I’d have to say the work that strikes the most chords inside me and that I can identify with is the work of Cartier-Bresson (God I hate saying this, but it’s true), Bert Hardy and O Winston Link. Anyway, during my first quick shoot with Mindaugas in his workshop I was intrigued to find out how he got to work. It turns out he walks, so there was my second shoot. Just before I left for the UK last week I met him on a bridge as planned and walked into work with him, getting to know him more and taking a few pictures. A crude edit of the two shoots can be seen here. To add a little more information before I crawl back under the duvet, Mindaugas is married with three children and studied history at Vilnius University. His story is like that of any other person, which is sort of what attracts me to it, and his reason for becoming a ceramic artist was that he didn’t want to work in an office. When I met him on the bridge he’d just been to one of Vilnius’ most popular folk restaurants for whom he’s just made new salt and pepper pots. I want to go them are take pictures of people eating and using his pots. This is exactly the kind of ordinary magic that inspires me. Anyway, back to bed.

Pah

Like a deafening silence, the Lithuanian Karaite are conspicuous by their absence in Trakai. It was only when I saw two young Karaite women in a car as I was walking back to the bus station today after failing to take one single photograph worth posting (maybe a fresh look tomorrow will change the situation) that I realised I hadn’t seen any at all in the three hours I was there. Lithuanian Karaite Visibility comes courtesy of many things in Trakai, not least the two restaurants (three actually, at least when the other one at the Karaite Community centre is open, which it never is) selling the classic Lithuanian Karaite dish kibinai. Will kibinai be the only thing left to remember them by in 20 years I wonder? Even the spelling’s been Lithuanianised, the Karaite word for it being kybyn. I’m suddenly reminded of the Lithuanian dish kugelis, which is transformed when spelt differently into the old Jewish favourite, kugel. I even know Lithuanians who’ve been to university who are convinced is a Lithuanian invention. Trakai (total population less than 5,000) is a hugely popular tourist destination for Lithuanians and foreigners alike, a town that draws on its Karaite heritage to the point of dependence. I went there today, a horribly sunny affair that promised little in the way of emotive photography, with nothing in the way of an agenda and to be honest not a little pissed off with the cold reception I’ve so far received from the Lithuanian Karaite movement themselves, who remain stubborn to say the least with regards to me invading their lives. In the back of my mind I was interested in exploring the idea of photographing the very lack of the Karaite in the town as mentioned in the first paragraph, which could possibly yield an interesting photographic essay of a culture that refuses to play ball. Like some demented African explorer I wandered about the town, photographing empty playgrounds, benches with nobody sitting on them, broken pleasure boats on the shore of the lake with the Karaite cemetery in the background across the water, waiting for the vanished tribe to materialise. I was kind of interested by my earlier photographs of the Polish gentleman, Henryk, who lives next to the Karaite cemetery and who expressed indifference to the culture he shares the town with. In fact, just about the only word I wrote down when I was there was indifference. Whilst taking a photograph of a parking meter I was accosted by an elderly chap who told me his name was Vytautas, the very name of the Lithuanian Grand Duke responsible for bringing the Karaite to Lithuania in the first place. My Vytautas, a native of Trakai, had nothing to say about the Karaite. Indifference. I farted around on the island named after the Karaite, took pictures of the bridge named in their honour (the last thing they cross before being lowered into the Trakai soil for all eternity at the ends of their lives) and even knocked on the doors of the houses on either side of the Kenesa to see if I could start some kind of dialogue with somebody. Everybody was out, and I felt like a total idiot. Now I just feel angry, not least because I’m flying to the UK in a couple of days and feel like I’ve achieved nothing. On a rosier note, I called my blind ceramics man earlier and he’s agreed to let me take photographs of him walking to work. At least something’s moving in the right direction, although it does feel a bit like a case of the blind leading the blind. Next up, find a subject to work on in the UK.

More Mindaugas

Welcome to the Lithuanian spa resort of Druskininkai, ironically the first destination of my first abandoned Borders project. I’m sitting in my hotel, in a ridiculously posh suite complete with two flat screen televisions and all the trimmings on a two-night work trip re-writing a lacklustre guide to the town for my current employers. Despite the fact that work has once again gone into overdrive I do at least have the evening off, leaving me some time to update here. Following on from my last post, I’d arranged to meet the blind ceramic artist Mindaugas Rutkauskas in his workshop this Tuesday. Like a twit I went out on Monday night and drank too much badly looked-after Guinness, leaving me with an already overstretched workload plus a photographic assignment on top of a shitty hangover. I dropped by Mindaugas’ place on the way to the office to see if I could arrange another day to photograph him, but ended up taking a few pictures anyway, of which you can see a few edited samples here. I’d decided to shoot at 800ASA due to the lack of light, which have me just enough to work with if I kept to a wide lens with the aperture wide open. After deciding the colour was too good to lose and do this work in black and white I sat down this afternoon and enhanced the pictures in Lightroom. I’m still not sure whether I’ve got the right look, but I like them all the same. Having realised that even if I could find a Pentax-dedicated flashgun in Lithuania (I couldn’t), Mindaugas’ workshop has no light surfaces anyway, so I found myself forced to work using available light anyway, which I must say I do prefer. Mindaugas has a window that would’ve allowed a little more light in, but I liked the look of it when it was closed so relied only on one striplight and two angle-poise lamps. I found him hard at work making these little musical animals, which are essentially whistles and that he was adding glaze to. After 20 minutes or so I had to dash but have agreed to do one more shoot with him before I leave for the UK next Wednesday. I’m now in touch with one of the main people in the Lithuanian Karaite community, who replied to my email in a fairly negative way. I’m sure I can win them around (more on the subject later), but have now got another subject if I need it. Comments and suggestions always welcome.

Mindaugas Rutkauskas

The first serious film I ever made, in 1990, was called A Short Film about Ken and the Universe. The Ken of the title was Ken Revis, a blind ex-serviceman who lost his sight removing Allied mines on Brighton’s West Pier in 1943 in preparation for D-Day (you can read his obituary in the Telegraph here). The film was co-directed by my friend Jamie Allen, who at the time was working on a building site in Ovingdean, close to the large St Dunstan’s building a mile or so away overlooking the English Channel. St Dunstan’s is a large UK charity working with blind and partially sighted ex-service men and women from all three UK services, and Ken was very actively involved with them. Ken would take a walk on his own every day past where Jamie was working, and Jamie became intrigued by Ken so decided to strike up a conversation. To cut a long story short, Ken was, somewhat ironically, involved in the West Pier Trust, an organisation that tried to save (and as anyone who’s ever been to Brighton will know, failed) the Pier from rotting away. Ken never could explain his attraction to the pier beyond saying that it was the last thing he ever saw. Anyway, the film showed Ken talking about his life, cut together with footage of him making small sculptures from bits of the West Pier Jamie had found lying on the beach. We tried to raise money to make a longer version of the film by way of some screenings, at which one was attended by a local television production company who liked the idea so much they stole it and made their own film. Let that be a lesson to you. Fast forward almost 20 years and I’m in Vilnius working on a feature piece for the magazine I’m currently editing. One of the museums, that to the best of my knowledge has never featured in any guidebook about Vilnius, is a little place tucked away in a Vilnius backstreet that’s dedicated to the history of the Lithuanian Association for the Blind. Anyway, to cut another long story short, among the museum’s displays was a collection of ceramics made by local blind people, among them a man by the name of Mindaugas Rutkauskas, who has a workshop close to where I’m currently living. I visited Mindaugas today in his workshop on my way to meet another Karaite (more of that later) to talk to him, see his work, and to ask him if I could take some photographs of him next week. We’ve set a date for Tuesday, and so I’ve got a nice little project to work on. Mindaugas is completely blind in his right eye and has 0.08 percent vision in his left. His work includes vases, large ceramic stoves and some surprisingly intricate little statues. His workshop is in a basement with a little light coming in through two small windows and a bit more from a couple of angle poise lamps (he doesn’t need much). I took a couple of quick test shots today on my point and shoot to see how the light was, and as you can see it’s quite dull and very contrasty. So, as well as embarking on a short piece of work the likes I’ve never really done before (in stills photography anyway), I’m up against lighting problems. I’ve decided to shoot black and white and to use whatever available light there is. I realise that my work is all over the place at the moment and really am working hard to produce some results, this pleasant and I hope touching little assignment hopefully giving me what I need to move forward.

Dainius

As mentioned in a post from yesterday, Dainius has finally come up with some answers to my original questions. I’ve now edited what he wrote and have created a new set of questions to help illuminate some of the issues he discusses and to fill in some of the gaps in continuity. Additional to his text are some 200 photographs taken by him on his Nokia, some of them hinted at by me in terms of content, but most taken entirely at random. With the text I can now start working on the pictures and getting Dainius to add the second layer to his written account of his experiences living in the UK. This remains very much an experiment. I’ve included the edited text below and would be interested to hear comments on it from anyone. Today I visited a tiny museum dedicated to the blind in Lithuania. An extraordinary experience I learnt all about the slow integration of Lithuanian blind people into society over the last 80 years and have been thinking in particular about a blind choir and a blind potter who has a workshop around the corner from the office. No news until Monday on my Karaite connections. I may go away this weekend for a party on the coast. If not I’ll absolutely make the trip back to Trakai and will see if I can start making some progress. No reply to my email to the Karaite community as I predicted. Maybe also tomorrow I’ll drop by the Karaite restaurant here in Vilnius and see if I can get somebody there to help further the cause.

Mobile Nation
Pilot

Name Dainius Buržminskas
Nationality Lithuanian

I was born in Pasvalys Central Hospital on February 6, 1975. I grew up in the Lithuanian Highlands in a tiny village of less than 200 people called Nairiai, 5km south of the border between the Soviet republics of Lithuania and Latvia.

Although I’ve never seen my father I had good childhood. My grandfather was the real father in my life. Together we spent lots of time collecting mushrooms in the forest, riding on a motorcycle and playing chess. He passed away on September 1, 2008 and was an intelligent man with a good education and people liked him very much. My mother’s name is Laima. She’s 57 years old and lives in Nairiai. I love her and we keep in regular contact. She works as a cleaner in the village’s House of Culture. I’ve got a step-sister, Jolita, born in Pasvalys on January 3, 1978. She’s married with three children, a girl of 10 and two boys aged six and four. She’s unemployed and stays at home looking after the children.

At school I was good at sport and really enjoyed playing handball, football, basketball and running. I was one of the best runners in my area and was also the regional chess champion in my early teens. I finished secondary school in 1993 and was awarded a school leaving certificate. I had a lot of friends at school.

During the Soviet occupation we weren’t told that Lithuania was once an independent country. Our teachers never mentioned this and I genuinely believed Lithuania had always been part of the Soviet Union. When Lithuania gained independence on March 11, 1990 everything changed.

Between 1994 and 1997 I studied printing and publishing technology at a technological college in Lithuania’s second city, Kaunas. I lived in a student hostel where I made some good friends, some of whom I still keep in touch with. These were great times and I really enjoyed my student life. When I finished college I started work in a Kaunas printing company called Spaudos Praktika, but I wasn’t happy and decided to move and find a better job in the capital.

I moved to Vilnius in 1998 and worked for a publishing company called TEV who published educational books for schools, colleges and universities. As the director’s assistant, each day I gained more experience in publishing and printing and quickly learnt a lot. In Vilnius I made some really good friends who’ve stood by me over the years and who I respect greatly. During this time I also had my first serious relationship with a woman, Vaida, who I lived with for over two years.

Over the next five years or so I moved from company to company but was never happy with the ridiculous wages. It really was difficult to survive. On May 1, 2004 Lithuanian joined the European Union. Vaida found work in Norway and after three months we split up. One year later I borrowed some money and moved to England. I arrived by coach in Leeds on the morning of September 26, 2005. Myself and my travelling companion Vytas Pilelis travelled by taxi to an employment agency we’d registered with called Globamed International and where we met another Lithuanian guy called Dovydas Butkus. We were really tired after the long journey. Little did we know that this agency would piss off us. That’s was our welcome to England.

It turned out that the agency had lied to us about wages and accommodation. We were sent to work in a really bad nursing home in a town called Mirfild between Huddersfield and Wakefield. It was absolutely crap, and completely different to what we’d expected. We earned £4.85 an hour, the minimum wage in the UK at the time, working as care assistants. Accommodation came with the job, for which the three of us were expected to sign a contract to pay £320 each per month. A three-bedroom house at this time cost about £500, almost half what we were being made to pay. We refused to sign the contract, and on the same day met some Lithuanian guys on the street who helped us with a place to sleep. We spent a few nights in small two-bedroom house with five other people. After a few days we found two-bedroom house for £400 a month plus bills.

We worked like slaves. No respect, no attention. Just work, work and work. Always 12-hour shifts with only four members of staff and 26 residents. Some of the management treated us like animals. They were racists. They used to say very rude things about us, thinking we didn’t understand English. I thought about coming back to Lithuania. But after a year, when my English became better, I found a job in small printing house in Leeds where I worked as a print finisher. I felt better, started going out, meeting and talking to interesting people. England became friendly for me.

As my English further improved I met an English woman in a pub and we started a relationship. It was very interesting for me. Different traditions, different countries, but hearts beating with the same blood. I started working for another printing house. The work was very hard, with 12-hour shifts and just one 45-minute unpaid lunch break. Unfortunately the company didn’t keep their promises about wage increases and I soon left the job, and the woman. All this time I was living in the Harehills area of Leeds, where people were getting shot a few streets away from my front door. Realising this wasn’t the place for me, I first moved into another house full of Lithuanians before moving again into a house with a lot of Polish people, who I found to be very friendly.

I eventually found another job as a personal care assistant and decided to move away from Leeds. On Christmas Eve 2007 I moved to King’s Lynn on the north Norfolk coast with my Lithuanian girlfriend Danutė. We shared a room in a large house with a big garden. The other Lithuanians in the house were a young married couple, Juozas and Neringa and their baby, Nikas, a single guy called Erikas and young single woman, Laima.

When I’m not at work I like to travel around the UK whenever I can, discovering new and beautiful cities. So far I’ve visited Leeds, York, Dewsbury and Ilkle in Yorkshire, Birmingham, Bridgnorth, Stafford, Telford, Stone and Claverley in the Midlands, the Norfolk towns of Hunstanton, Norwich, King's Lynn and Sandrigham, plus Manchester and the two main Scottish cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh. I like to visit old buildings and museums, and I often take photographs of them. Sometimes I just go to the pub for few drinks but not much. I prefer a healthy life style. I don't smoke, and drink very little alcohol. My hobbies are travelling and working on my PC, which I’m just learning and am improving all the time.

One afternoon I was on duty looking after a client called Francis Palmer in Wolverhampton. I was looking out one of his windows, saw a wedding and made some pictures on my phone. I was excited to see an English wedding. It was an interesting experience and something new for me.

Lithuanian alcohol is good. All of it, including the vodka, the beer and the wine. I don't drink British alcohol apart from Scotch whisky, and I don't like English beer. Lithuanian food is all right, but I sometimes like different food, such as English, Russian, Indian and Russian cuisine. English food generally isn’t very good for me. I don't like fast food. I prefer nice, light and healthy food. I like to eat lots of vegetables, fresh salads.

Lithuanian people are very different from the English. Their culture and way of like depend very much on their education and religion. Some are very nice and friendly, but unfortunately mostly of them are selfish and just looking after themselves. I’ve found a few good Lithuanian friends in England, but I keep my distance from most of them. In my experience, the English don’t usually don't like immigrants, and a lot of them are racist. Having said that I’ve found some really nice English people. They respect foreigners who speak English, and are polite, well educated and always ready to help you. English people have a great sense of humour. Lithuanian women are different, and I don’t have a very good opinion about them. Many are just looking for a rich man who can provide an easy life for them, pay for everything and take care of them. Some of them are nice, looking after their family and taking good care of their men. I don't know many English women that well. In general they’re warm, polite and easy to talk to.

Daniel’s my client. I work and live with him one week on, one week off in Stone, Staffordshire. He’s got a great sense of humour, making the job of looking after him much easier. I do it because it's interesting, and the money’s good as well. Daniel’s 24, and was born in Stone, where he’s got own flat. He’s confined to an electric wheelchair. He’s got a lot of friends who visit him almost every day. He likes to go out in his car, usually to Stafford. He enjoys his PC and uses it to chat with his friends.

It's very difficult to say where I think I’ll be in five years. Sometimes I plan my life, but unpredictable things happen and my plans change.

Ha!

I completely forgot, Douglas already takes photographs with his phone. See for yourself. Off to the office now, but will be back on the case this evening. Dainius’ replies to my questions are great. I’m also now editing it down into something more readable whilst compiling a list of second questions and concrete requests for photographs. Didn’t Paul mention something about professional practice as the third part of our assessed work this term? If so, I think working a finished piece together for the Dainius project with my Vilnius-based designer friend Mark would be just the ticket.

(im)mobile nation

Whilst the Karaite are bubbling away nicely on the back boiler (more in a later blog) I thought I’d spend some minutes writing down a few thoughts on the subject of where I plan to take the mobile phone photography. As reported yesterday, Dainius, like a true Lithuanian, is taking forever to finish replying to the questions I sent him what seems like (and what probably is) weeks and weeks ago. Without this exchange of ideas I can’t find a way of moving the project forwards with him beyond the pointless exercise of looking at the photographs he’s sent me so far and wondering what on earth I’m going to do with them. Inspired by my own recent thoughts as well as by Rhian’s Albert Hastings post and a look over some of the work I was doing in Greece earlier in the year, I’m now busily engaged in turning everything on its head, which in the case I’m writing about here involves a temporary halting of my voyeuristic flâneurisms and refocusing on the art of engaging with the photographic subject to a point closely resembling collaboration. This also involves spending less time on worrying about the image and more on the process (more of that in alter blog as well). If I throw everything I’ve learnt and experienced about photography over the last 12 months up in the air and have a look at it, I can see lots of moments that stand out, some of them possessing the inclination to be brought together and formed into a sort of Heath Robinsonesque photographic project. The bastard child of my ongoing albeit temporarily immobilised project with my friend the self-monikered ‘disabled Welsh-Englishman’ Douglas Hoarton and my grand plans for a Mobile Nation project, (im)mobile nation fans the flames of my belief that each and every mobile phone possesses within itself the power to do great things, whilst simultaneously being capable of producing some outstanding documentary photography. That’s the theory, anyway. If anybody has even the faintest idea how I might be able to produce some work with a partially disabled man taking photographs in Greece whilst I’m in Lithuania I’d be delighted what that idea might be. Bloody hell, Dainius has just finished his questionnaire. How opportune is that?

Minor update

Have been on a glorious extended seaside weekend away from technology and am back again in an expensive flat with even more expensive heating that doesn’t work (but that still has to be paid for). In among the usual crap in my inbox on my return was a short reply to a Karaite-hunting email I sent to my good friend Dovid Katz, who as usual knows exactly the right people to contact as who’s open all the appropriate doors. It feels good to not only have a proper project to chase but one that requires interaction with my fellow species. I’ve been indulging in my isolation too much of late and have suffered for it. Switching the mobile/serious photography has been a breath of fresh air. I feel like I’ve achieved everything I can with my mobile wanderings, but have got from it a fresh set of ideas as already outlined here for my Mobile Nation project. Dainius is still not finished answering the questions I sent him, but I’m still young. I now need to concentrate on how to develop this project further. I think I mentioned my desire to continue my work with my friend Douglas in Greece (the one who had the stroke), and am currently pondering this. I’m blissfully broke and haven’t felt so good in ages.

I should point out however

I should point out however as come to think of it I haven’t actually mentioned it anywhere, that the main theme of the project is to photograph, initially, the remaining members of the Trakai Karaite community, then, if things go well, to work on the rest of them in Lithuania. Other cultural issues such as food, religion, language etc, and how to go about looking into them photographically, remain side issues that I may or may not explore depending on how the project progresses.

More thoughts about the Karaite

Searching the internet for Karaite-related information today I came across the BBC Who Do You Think You Are site. For those who aren’t familiar with it it’s a documentary series that’s hitched a ride on the back of the current obsession with tracing family history that follows celebrities as they attempt to unravel the mysteries of their ancestral past. I’ve seen a few of them, but not the one that came up in my search, namely the programme that focused on the English actor David Suchet. The two things I find of particular note about the series are the importance of family history as a way of telling historical stories in a personal way and the fact that we don’t really know much about our ancestors, and are quite often astonished when we start to look into them. Suchet knew his family history less than a hundred years back, namely that of his grandfather who came to the UK from South Africa. He knew that he had Eastern European Jewish roots, but no more than that. Using a Russianised version of his family name he managed to work his way back to of all places Lithuania, or rather modern-day Lithuania that at the time he was interested in knowing more about was, after exhaustive research both part of tsarist Russia and the Prussian Empire. Dipping into old records he soon discovered that far from being descended from Eastern European Jewry he was in fact the descendent of Turks (thus the connection with the Karaite, who incidentally weren’t mentioned in the programme but who came up in the comments left on the series website by its readers). Anyhow, the thing that really struck me in relation to the project I’m embarking on with the Karaite is that it’s particularly important to create this series of portraits for the benefit of future generations. Photographic evidence on its own is powerful enough (eg. the slow cultural changes in Karaite clothing from their traditional costumes in the late 19th century through to the now uniform (no pun intended) adoption of Western clothing. With the addition of some writing, I firmly believe the project will make a significant addition to the history of the Karaite, not least because from all the research I’ve do far uncovered, nobody has made any serious or otherwise photographic record of the Karaite community. Ethnically, the Lithuanian Karaite are utterly unique, despite sharing some common heritage with their neighbours over the border in Poland. This is most evident in their language, which contains many instances of Lithuanian alongside the Polish and Russian influences as seen in the language of the Polish Karaite (of which I should point out there are less than the population of the Lithuanian Karaite). The last head count of the Lithuanian Karaite population took place in 1997, of which it was found that there were 252 left in the country, 60 or so of them in Trakai, the spiritual home of the Turkic offshoot of the world Karaite movement. Alongside the language, I’m particularly interested in recording somehow their religious practices (the Karaite are unusual in that they remove their shoes before entering a kenesa, or Karaite synagogue), which must surely betray their Turkic (Islamic?) origins. Their folk art also looks entirely Islamic, and their food is also very non-Jewish. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, most remaining Lithuanian Karaite are busy integrating within modern Lithuanian society, with only a handful attempting to hang on to their original culture. This was brought home to me when I made my test picture of Artūras, who when asked if he was going to marry a Karaite woman said it depended entirely on his heart. Following ones heart may be the best way to live life, but under certain circumstances it can mean whether an entire ethnic group survives or is wiped off the face of the planet. Unfortunately, yesterday I couldn’t attend the session with John, and this weekend I’m busy with other things, so there’s not much to report on the Karaite project beyond my usual trains of thought. I have however emailed representatives of the Karaite community (on the recommendation of Artūras) but don’t hold out much hope for a response. As in most things, it’s the personal touch that’s going to move things along. More research has uncovered the fact that nobody really knows who the Lithuanian Karaite are. There’s no doubt that they came from the Crimea at the end of the 14th century, but how this ethnically Turkic group ended up converting to Karaite Judaism, and exactly who they were when they did, remains a total mystery. Just how I’m going to go about this project visually also remains at least in part a mystery. I decided before I made my first trip to Trakai last weekend that I was going to do the project in black and white, but beyond that I don’t have much idea about style. Most important is a visual record accompanied by an underlying documentary/journalistic approach to the work. I’ve been looking at portraits today, and although I find the more interesting and dramatic examples visually exciting, I do wonder if sometimes this style of over-romanticising photography takes more away from the very essence of the subject than it adds. I suppose only time can tell where all of this is going to lead me.

The Karaite

Artūras Lavrinovičius
23, Trakai
Single
Business studies student and administrator in Karaite restaurant in Vilnius

Dear John

Not much in the way of new things to show this week, more a quick update including where I’m and where I hope this is going to take me. I’ll be brief.



Borders
Have abandoned the history of Vilnius idea because I can’t see it fitting with the Nokumentary postcard approach. Instead, firstly for aesthetic reasons I took the borders idea literally and have started putting white borders on my mobile phone street pictures. On a black background they look superb. Second, I’m churning this new material out at a ridiculously low size. As the global economy crumbles around our ears I think it’s time to think small. Paul Klee took a line for a walk and created small masterpieces. I take my phone for a walk and try to do the same. About the pictures I take with my phone on the street, I’m trying to capture the essence of what I see in front of me. Unlike the current trend in street photography (no time to quote anyone) that’s more about showing how clever the photographer is (people going up ladders into the sky, people who look like people in posters behind them etc), I’m really charmed with the idea of truly documenting the briefest of moments that somehow show more. I try hard to make my pictures look good of course, but not clever. Never clever. I’m going to keep moving forwards with this and see where it takes me. No plans as yet to abandon the idea as the Borders project. I’m treading the borders of acceptable documentary photography already, so that’s ok with me. Sometimes I despair at this work, but general I see an interesting and worthwhile body of work coming together.


Mobile Nation
As I start to write this sitting in a temporary office I realise Dainius’ new photographs are on my laptop back at the flat. Never mind. Dainius has just split with his girlfriend, and is trying to get his client, Daniel, the guy in the wheelchair, a girlfriend. He’s been photographing some of it. The project remains chaotic because as far as I know there’s no precedent plus until Dainius finishes and sends back the questionnaire I sent him I can’t really start putting ideas together. I’m still young, and this is such a great idea, that I’m in no hurry. To up the ante a little, I’m working on adding my second person to the project, my friend Douglas in Greece. Douglas had a massive stroke four years ago, which has severely affected the left side of his body (his arm is totally useless and his leg is so bad he has to go everywhere with a stick) and his mind, which has gone from an arrogant, outspoken, sharp tool into something that would belong better inside the head of a shy four-year-old girl. For a few months earlier this year I started a photographic project with Douglas, filming his life on my dSLR. My lifestyle means I find this difficult to keep up with, so have thought about getting Douglas to start taking photographs with his phone and to work on a project with me. He’s already started writing his life story. Damn this job thing gets in the way of the things I really should be doing!


DJ portraits
A co-project with an English designer living here in Vilnius. He wants a series of portraits of the best DJs in Vilnius and wants me to photograph it. The project will be shot on dSLR and co-edited. I want and need to do more portraits.

The Karaite
Tomorrow I go to Trakai for the weekend for work. Trakai, 28km west of here, was the ancient capital of Lithuania. In the 14th century the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas brought members of the Karaite community back to work as his personal bodyguards as well as the guards of Trakai itself. Vytautas (Polish, Witold) brought them from the Crimea where he’d been fighting the Golden Horde, but Karaite history goes back further than that. They originate from Mesopotamia, were originally Jews (some say the lost tribe) and they split in two several hundred years ago. What little there remains of the Karaite community in the world still adhere to their Old Testament beliefs. The Lithuanian Karaite on the other hand (of which there are around only 300 left) acknowledge both Jesus and Mohamed and are a strange bunch indeed. I recently met one of them, a restaurant owner, and he’s agreed to be photographed. Wouldn’t it be great to make a record of the entire community? I can follow this up next week when I return.

In short then, plenty of ideas but not much photography. I feel ashamed. There’s only about 10 minutes of fucking daylight here in the winter anyway. It’s going to snow all weekend. I’ll be taking lots of photographs.

Oh, and I got the page proofs back from the book we’re doing about Albania, complete with my photographs. They look good.

Ignore this post

Find more photos like this on mapjd08online

More interesting things at Flickr

Bloody bored stupid with people poking fun at Flickr but I'll continue to lend it some plaudits from time to time as and when needed as it's better than all of you put together. Now then, a nice Pool somebody set up here called the Chinese Restaurant Worldwide Documentation Project, of which one of my photographs (above) has been added. It's an interesting idea for a Pool, and is quite active and serious on one level (read some of the Discussions for example). What I particularly like about it (and this can be said for Flickr in general) is that one's free to get involved on any level they want. An admin from the group was trawling the pages and found my picture. It was invited to the Pool. I could then decline or accept and instantly become part of a international group of people showing photographs. I was then free to get more involved (having decided to add my picture to the Pool) or not, the latter in this case being what I did. As I keep showing you, Flickr is extraordinary. I'm not sure what the problem is that so many people have with it. Actually I don't really care any more.

Other work

Well then, there is a bit. Not much for my sins though. I did take my dSLR out of his little bag the other day and shoot some pictures with it. This was partly inspired by the previously mentioned Antanas Sutkus exhibition I saw, who reminded me that photographs don't necessarily have to be bad to be good. The DJ portraits project is still in the taking-about-it-over-yet-another-beer stage, although we are now sending things backwards and forwards to each other, which feels like a start anyway. One of the aforementioned things was this portrait of Marius the piercer I took earlier in the year in Greece, which Mark has Photoshopped a bit. Today I was thinking to do the whole project in black and white, and to dress the DJs in dinner jackets for obvious and rather droll reasons. The guidebook I'm doing in Vilnius should go to the printers tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning, so a bit more time to do things. Today (Sunday) I had scores of noble ideas and have so far watched a film and cleaned the shower.

Thomas Cook Travellers Albania

It's always nice getting page proofs back from the publisher, especially so when the pages include one's photographs as well as one's writing. The Travellers Albania guide isn't published until March 2009, which is why these pictures are published he so small.

Borders

Lost again

I promised everyone on this course months and months and months ago that I’d introduce them to some Soviet-era Lithuanian documentary photographers. It’s taken forever to do, not least because the books that I had on the subject vanished, and to be honest I really couldn’t remember any of the photographers’ names. Today I saw a poster advertising a photographic exhibition in the Vilnius Picture Gallery. I liked the look if the poster, so I went. The show runs until December 18, and features the work of two Lithuanian photographers, Antanas Sutkus, who was born in 1939 and who’s generally considered to be the greatest Lithuanian photographer alive or otherwise, Ugnius Gelguda, the younger of the two who despite having the more interesting name failed to interest me at all. Antanas Sutkus on the other hand, whose work hangs permanently all over the world including in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, studied journalism under the Soviets in the late 1950s, a course that at the time took six years to complete. He specialised in photography, and it’s to him that we owe a hug debt. His philosophy goes deeper than simply recording he people of a particular time, but this is what he’s done like no other. He’s been likened to Cartier-Bresson, and you can see the similarities in their work, but he really is much more besides. I’m excited because I haven’t been inspired for so long. As eagle-eyed readers of this blog will already know, next year is the 1,000th anniversary of the first written mention of Lithuania and as such is a big year, a year I’m very keen to collect in photographs, even if it means becoming a tramp for nine months. I’m waffling as usual. Sutkus’ pictures are all black and white, and for the first time in I can’t remember how long I was inspired to work in the medium. I’m still desperately trying to kick-start the Vilnius Borders project, but am absolutely at a loss. Today I spent spare moments in the street and on public transport trying to capture the natural beauty of the people around me with my James Bond cameraphone, but really couldn’t get inside the work. I’m like a ship without a rudder, fuelled on too many ideas and heading for a philosophical iceberg. Among Sutkus’ photographs on show were several taken of children, who he has a natural affinity with, which he also explains most eloquently. One of his most famous photographs is of a tight(ish) head shot of a young Pioneer, which although is worthy of much plaudits doesn’t do half as much for me as the photograph in the show on the opposite wall (above) of a boy of more or less the same age as the Pioneer, who just so happens to also be a pioneer, but who is blind. The emotions locked up inside that photograph brought a lump to my throat. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about photographic young people recently as the project I believe I’ve mentioned before, of the portraits of the Lithuanian DJs, is slowly moving forwards. My partner in crime, another Englishman stuck here in Vilnius and enjoying every minute of it, commissioned the work from me as a fan, and we’re now working on how to present it. I’ll almost certainly shoot everything on the dSLR, and we’ll almost certainly present them as a series of cards (I can’t keep away from them), in this instance in the style of Top Trumps. The idea is to do a series and ‘release’ them one at a time in clubs in Vilnius. Fans can them collect, swap them etc in the style of the original. Mark, the gentleman I’m working with on the project, wants to add some text, something along the lines of a short biography and marks out of 10 for things like Originality and Mixing. I’ll leave that up to him. The Top Trumps idea came from brainstorming, which in turn came from my own musings into what the hell it is I’m doing with a camera in the first place. I recently noticed a similarity between my mobile phone photography and 16th-century Flemish tapestries. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting myself in the same league (they were the best in the world in the time and highly sought after by the richest people), I just see a similarity between the Nokia noise, especially in low light, and the weave of a tapestry. This got me thinking about all sorts of other related (pre-photographic) art forms including miniature portraits, which I’m a fan of but know almost nothing about. I hate my mobile phone this week and have started calling it Nancy. It plays up all the time, failing to capture the image when I want it and producing the most ridiculous exposures. I thought this was why I liked it, but today I have my doubts. I know that intense periods of work with it produce beautiful results, but the style of working, which essentially leaves me isolated from the subjects, feels like a depressing one at the moment. Weeks and weeks ago I bought a pad of huge sheets of paper with the idea of plotting thoughts, maps etc on them to help move the Borders project along. I really do need to do this. We go to the printers next Wednesday too, so I’m really distracted, especially as I haven’t worked on this particular in this particular office for five years. Blah blah blah, Dainius, my first Mobile Nation guinea pig, split up with his girlfriend last week and my first reaction was to get him to take pictures. What a strange world we live in. He’s just as I write this finishing (at least he says he’s finishing) the questionnaire I sent him. Armed with this we can move the project to the next level. Have I written enough? Probably (almost 1,000 words). But did I say anything?

Shopping

I went to of all things the press conference pre-opening of yet another ghastly shopping mall in Vilnius last week. What a strange life getting paid to drink champagne first thing in the morning and pretend to take notes whilst three businessmen (in the local sense of the word) struggle to tell 50 unimaginative journalists what makes their new shopping mall different from all others (answer, nothing). This was all taking place in the mall itself, which if all went to plan opened a couple of hours ago. I say if all went to plan because when I was there it was chaos, with the toilets barlely plumbed in and thousands of shopgirls running around fitting out their new stores. The clothes shop immediately behind the press conference caught my attention, or rather these three creatures did. To be honest the reason I went was because the mall's got the first electric go-kart track in Lithuania, and we assembled hacks were all promised a ride. Instead I got bored and went and looked around a couple of churches.

Geert van Kesteren

Heaven knows where to post anything these days. I'm tempted to bang everybody's heads together and start a dictatorship. Whatever. I had a good session with John yesterday, doing what I do best and playing the voyeur as Kate and Lizzie laid their souls on the table. I was involved really, and among the topics up for discussion was the work of a photographer who used a mobile phone in Iraq. John couldn't remember the chap's name. It's Geert van Kesteren, and it turns out he doesn't actually take the photographs himself, rather he uses the mobile phone photography of Irqais who can get the kind of access denied to a Western photographer. Funny, as I'm doing something similar with my Dainius project. Anyways, for those interested, his work is currently showing in Brighton, in of all places Lighthouse, where I worked on and off for years. Small world.

Here's da link.

The Great War Archive

Excuse my grammar...

Whilst having a quick look around at things connected to WWI due to my own personal interest in the subject thanks to my grandfather who fought in it and whose photographs and other personal bits and pieces I recently scanned, I came across The Great War Archive. What I find particularly interesting about it (beyond that is my joy at knowing how useful the internet has become to people working in many different areas of historical research and publishing, and how this will all one day be of immense importance to the world) is that the project, run by Oxford University, has limited funds (and therefore time), so has created a Flickr group for people to keep adding to the project in an interesting way. There's also a blog. None of this is truly spectacular, but it's all part of what's clearly the nascent gurglings of a future electronic publishing phenomenom. Bedtime here so I'll have to get involved another day. Power to the people.

1964

The 13 main historic Vilnius languages

Belarusian
German
Karaite/Karaim
Latin
Lithuanian
Po Prostu
Polish
Proto-Lithuanian
Roma
Russian
Tartar
Ukrainian
Yiddish

Vilnius ethnicity since 1897

City of Vilna 1897
Jews (40.0%)
Poles (30.1%)
Russians (20.9%)
Belarusians (4.3%)
Lithuanians (2.1%)
Germans (1.4%)
Tatars (0.5%)
Ukrainians (0.3%)
Other (0.4%)
Source: 1897 Russian census

City of Wilna 1916
Poles (50.2%)
Jews (43.5%)
Lithuanians (2.6%)
Russians (1.5%)
Other (2.2%)
Source: 1916 German census

City of Wilno 1931
Poles (65.9%)
Jews (28.0%)
Russians (3.8%)
Belarusians (0.9%)
Lithuanians (0.8%)
Germans (0.3%)
Ukrainians (0.1%)
Others (0.2%)
Source: 1931 Polish census

City of Wilna 1942
Poles (41.89%)
Jews (27.78%)
Russians (1.95%)
Belarusians (2.55%)
Lithuanians (24.37%)
Germans (0.25%)
Other (1.21%)
Source: 1942 German census

City of Vilnius 1959
Lithuanians (33.6%)
Russians (29.4%)
Poles (20.0%)
Jews (7.0%)
Belarusians (6.2%)
Ukrainians (2.8%)
Other (1.0%)
Source: 1959 Soviet census

Vilnius city municipality 2001
Lithuanians (59.16%)
Poles (19.40%)
Russians (14.43%)
Belarusians (4.19%)
Source: 2001 Lithuanian census

Coincidences and side projects

As usual I’ve been thinking about completely changing the Borders project again. Over the last few days I’ve noticed that well over half of the photographs I take in Vilnius that ever get to see the light of day (ie. that get posted on a website somewhere) are taken at Kalvarijų Turgus (Kalvarijai Market). I’m still toying with the idea of moving the whole photographic show here, and will report back on the subject shortly. In the mean time, I just wanted to put this down on the subject. Proof once again if ever it was needed again that research is king. In 2002 I wrote about all of the different markets in Vilnius, including Kalvarijų Turgus. As luck would have it, I still have a copy of what I wrote, and using that as a starting point I was soon on a bizarre rollercoaster ride. During the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Kalvarijų Turgus was named Dzeržinskio Turgus after the Belarusian-born Polish Jew, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926), who went to school in Vilnius and who’s best remembered as being the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka. Lenin idolised Dzerzhinsky and considered him a true revolutionary hero. As such, all manner of things got named in his honour including a commune in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which in 1932 started an innovative programme using young homeless people to produce a replica of our old friend the Leica, the FED (as in Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky). I became particular interested in Kalvarijų Turgus when I discovered that the back section of it features an impromptu set of stalls selling second-hand goods including the occasional Soviet-era camera. I thought this was really interesting and because I’d like to shoot film again I’ve come up with an idea for shooting a series of portraits of market stallholders. What would be perfect would be portraits of stallholders who once had a run-in with what the Cheka eventually became, the KGB. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

On a different note I’ve been approached by an English friend living in Vilnius who wants me to work with him on a project about Vilnius DJs. Part of the Vilnius City of Culture 2009 thing (see earlier posts), we’re currently talking about how to do it. I’m keen to use the Nokia, which I’ve been busy developing a philosophy for. Small is beautiful. Today I’ve been reading about miniature portrait painting, of whom the Flemish during the 16th century were arguably the best. My dad’s family came to England from that part of the world during the same century. More coincidences. Anyway, a formal project with a mobile phone is a challenge. Watch this space.

Mobile Manifesto coming soon

Taking a camera for a walk

Concrete

Further to my mission as Vilnius’ unofficial cultural and historical flaneur, today I explored a couple of other sights in the city to help (hopefully) bring about more concrete ideas about the Borders project. In fact, concrete was the very word today. Vilnius’ magnificent (or is it grotesque?) and crumbling Palace of Concerts and Sports (Koncertų ir Sporto Rūmai) is an extraordinary piece of Soviet Brutalist architecture, and a particularly poignant symbol of Lithuanian dominance of the region and its attempts at destroying everything racially different that went before it. Built in 1971, the Palace of Concerts and Sports occupies a large section of the city’s former Jewish Cemetery (see previous posts for more on the subject), which opened way back in 1487 and was closed some time in the middle of the 19th century, about 100 years before it was desecrated in the name of Socialism. The building also holds the honour of being the venue for the infamous Sąjūdis Conference, when the Lithuanian version of Solidarity among other things reintroduced the non-Soviet Lithuanian flag and gave the Cathedral back to the Roman Catholic Church. Interestingly, especially as the event was exactly 20 years ago (Sąjūdis I should mention were one of the major forces in helping destroy the USSR), no monument stands to mark the event. I did notice however that a new(ish) monument to the Jewish cemetery has been placed outside. Further along the Neris river to the northeast is the site of the soon-to-open Tuskulėnų Rimties Parkas (Tuskulėnai Peace Park)built on the grounds of the 19th-century Tuskulėnų Dvaras (Tuskulėnai Manor) which was taken over by the KGB at the end of WWII and in whose grounds the bodies of 766 Lithuanian victims of the Soviets were found a few years ago. The site is being turned into yet another symbol of Lithuanian suffering at the hands of the Soviets, which, especially when you remember that the Lithuanians and Soviets made a deal over Vilnius in 1944 that effectively cleansed the city of its majority Polish population (among them the photographer Jan Bułhak - see earlier post), does look rather stupid. It’s precisely this ridiculous version of Lithuanian history that’s inspiring me to work on a project that addresses something a little more along the lines of the truth. Anyway, I’m not here to hold a grudge or to get too involved emotionally, I’m merely interested in how the city really grew. I’m starting to see the project as it’s going to be. More of that later.

The flaneur

Yesterday I went and had a look at the kenesa in Vilnius, one of (allegedly) only three surviving active ones left on the planet. A kenesa is the religious building of the karaite, a peculiar sect of Judaism who were believed to have broken away from Rabbinic Judaism in the mists of time in Baghdad. The karaite were bought to Lithuania by the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas (Polish, Witold, 1350-1430) as bodyguards and who still remain in small numbers, notably in the old Lithuanian capital at Trakai (Polish, Troki). Resplendent in their pointy boots and Oriental attire, the karaite represent much that has more or less vanished (or been removed) from the cultural makeup of Lithuania. They’re mentioned in the City of Strangers book, briefly, as are the Tartars, who once had a large community in Vilnius in what’s now known as the Lukiškės area of the city. Incidentally, this explains the Islamic graves I found in Vilnius (see earlier post). The book is doing an extraordinary job at recreating the recent past of this city, and is both helping and muddying my quest. The book is really a history of the city as told by outsiders who visited over the centuries, some of them famous authors, others more humble visitors. I’ve just been reading about Paul Otto Heinrich Fechter (1880-1958), a German submarine pilot during WWI and, under the pseudonym Paul Monty the author of a guidebook to Vilnius during the German occupation of the city from 1915 to 1918. Wanderstunden in Wilna (Wandering in Vilnius) speaks volumes about the way I feel not just about Vilnius but about my own fascination with cities. I’ve called myself an urban rambler for a long time, and I suppose it’s this obsession (or partly this obsession) that drove me into my current line of business. Paul Monty’s book is written for occupying German soldiers, and appeals directly to the flaneur, which is another word for urban rambler I suppose. Anyway, get from the book:

In this world, the right to conquer foreign cities in a privilege reserved only to a few mighty rulers and military leaders, but every traveller can successfully master unknown cities if he perfects the art of wandering. If the traveller is a clever strategist, he will certainly consult various maps and chronicles before he ventures into a strange town. If the traveller is an artist - and wandering is the freest form of art - he will approach the city from a completely different perspective. Without any hesitation, the urban wanderer will let fresh air guide him through the unfamiliar streets of the far-flung city. This form of travelling has the potential of breaking every kind of fortification. Fortunately for the traveller, our good old Wilna is blessed with a perpetual breeze, creating perfect conditions for endless roaming through its streets and squares.

It’s almost as if this was written for me.

Thinking

Border expansion

Slowly ploughing through the City of Strangers book, which despite containing a number of minor factual errors is the best thing I ever read about Vilnius. Consequently, and for reasons I’ll go into later, I’m now thinking about spreading the ‘borders’ of the project to outside the confines of the old city walls, including the whole of Vilnius as the subject. I need to think about this in more detail, but so far it makes sense. I really like the way my ideas chop and change. Anyway, today I briefly the Dawn Gate (Aušros Vartai), the single remaining gate of the five originally built into the city walls at the start of the 16th century. It contains a small chapel with a likeness of the Virgin Mary inside and is considered to have magical powers. Almost everybody who walks through the gates will glance up at the Madonna (turning round first if they’re walking into Old Town) and cross themselves. Some will go on their knees, and some will stay down for a long time. I took a few snaps (above) to get some ideas about how I could do a postcard about it, and am still thinking. Whatever, it’s one of the most important places in the city, regardless of one’s opinion about religion. I then took a number of bus journeys (above) in a fruitless attempt to find a jar of peanut butter. It seems there’s none left in the country. I like the people I find on buses and in the markets. Visually I believe the city deserves more than just what I can achieve in Old Town. Time to start talking to people about this in more detail. I’m starting to drown in my thoughts.

100 Strangers

Another interesting use for Flickr, here.

This is great!

Over the page in the Prologue (see previous post) and I’m introduced to the photographer Jan Bułhak (1876-1950), of whom I’ve never heard of until just now. In short he’s a famous Polish photographer, but as you start to look at his life you discover that he was born in a part of Russia that’s now Belarus and spent a large part of his life in Vilnius, or Wilno as it was known at the time, having recently changed hands from the Russia, via the German occupation of the city during WWI, to Poland.

Bułhak also wrote. Get this.

True Wilno remains closed and silent to snobs. Is it worth it to reveal your real treasures to souvenir-hunting vandals and ignorant blockheads? The city speaks softly of simple and noble things, and does not open up for everyone.

Beer!

City of Strangers

The quest for the centre always starts with the demarcation of the peripheries, for no middle point can be found without first identifying and then measuring the margins. Borders uphold the centre, they give it a sense of gravity, keep it alive.

From the Prologue of VILNIUS: City of Strangers (2008, Baltas Lankos, Vilnius), by the Lithuanian-Canadian academic Laimonas Briedas, which I’m reviewing for work purposes and will also be delving into in depth for the Borders research. In the words of my friend Dovid Katz, who contributed to the blub on the back, ‘At long last, a book that does not seek to impose a politically correct, ultranationalistic, retrospective ‘Vilnius’ on the many centuries of Vilna, Vilne and Wilno.’

My sentiments exactly, as I hope my blog posts on the Borders theme over the previous few weeks bear witness. At last I can feel some momentum.


Now for some beer.

First list for expansion

* Race
* Religion and religious buildings
* Streets
* Sights (including Vilnius University)
* Tourists
* Locals (including expats)

Vilnius continued

Started reading Tomas Venclova’s dreary but informative book about Vilnius. Bursting with fat, delicious facts. He points out that Vilnius has not only always been a border town but that the borders in question have changed. During the golden age of Lithuania in the middle of the 15th century, Lithuania was the largest country in Europe, its eastern border touching the Black Sea. With the western half of the country in German hands, Vilnius sat at the very west of the country. Today it sits at the far east, just 30km from Belarus. The book also has some valuable information about the old walls, that stood for 300 years and that were built in fear of a hostile Tartar invasion that never came. I think the walls don’t offer enough for the Borders project in themselves, and would force me to do something that may well look good but that would suffer from a confused text. I’m now looking at opening up the project visually to incorporate the whole of Old Town, incorporating previous ideas and looking at the city’s history through modern photography. I’m also curiously (and perhaps obviously) drawn to tourism. What is it that people are feeding on intellectually and spiritually when they jog from church to church? There’s a fascinating border here in the grey area between what little (usually biased) information they absorb courtesy of guided tours etc, and the facts about the places they visit as they really are. Not very explained I’m afraid. More to follow. I’m beginning to see the light.

Daniel, Dainius and Danutė

In the words of Nathan Barley, I’m a self-facilitating media node. Or something. Whatever I am, I know that ideas are nothing without action. As mentioned before, I’ve had an idea for a long time to borrow from several historical media sources and develop a documentary photography project that involves me in all of the major production processes with the exception of actually taking the photographs. For a long time now I’ve toyed with the idea of some kind of project about Lithuanians living in the UK. I first met Dainius in my local bar in Vilnius in 2001. A country boy at heart, Dainius worked at a fairly high level in a printing house, but despite his love of the job was depressed by his ridiculous low salary, the fact that without the right education he had no chance of climbing up the professional ladder (experience means nothing in Lithuania, it’s all about pieces of paper and/or the right cousin in the right place) and a particularly bad run of luck with women. In 2005 at the age of 30 Dainius borrowed some money from me, registered with an employment agency and was soon on his way to Leeds in the UK to attend to the needs of pensioners in a large home. Via a brief job in a printing house in Yorkshire, Dainius slowly adapted to his new life, learnt English (albeit with a Yorkshire accent) and is now working as a care assistant for one young English man called Daniel, who is confined to a wheelchair and who is paralysed in both his arms and his legs. Daniel appears to be the life and soul of the party and has rapidly become friends with Dainius, who’s also managed to find himself a girlfriend, a Lithuanian called Danutė. Excited, intrigued and interested by all of this I decided to ask Dainius if he’s be prepared to start recording his life on his Nokia. We began a couple of days ago, and heaven knows where it’s going to lead. His currently taking pictures on his mobile phone of the places and people in his life. As they start getting fed back to me I hope I can make sense of them and begin to work on an idea for a story, which will also include, I hope, extracts from Dainius’ diary. Cutting edge Nokumentary™ perhaps, maybe nothing will come of it. Whatever, it looks like it’s going to be an experiment worth investing time in.